"Heavy fighting in Myanmar’s Shan state has reached an almost unprecedented level of intensity, seen in last week’s ethnic rebel attacks on Myanmar military elite academies, army bases, police stations and locations around the northern capital of Lashio. The August 15 attacks by the so-called Northern Alliance Brotherhood, a loose collective of the Ta-ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Arakan Army (AA), have killed and wounded scores of soldiers, police and civilians caught in the crossfire. This is the first time in decades that ethnic insurgents have struck so close to the Myanmar heartland in the central Mandalay Region, and marks a sharp escalation after a lull of several months in northern Shan state, where armed conflict has raged for several years. While most attention has been on the daring ferocity of the attacks and the evident vulnerability of the security forces, the latest round of fighting has major implications for the future of the peace process in northern Myanmar..."